A heart-warming tale is told about the way the president Dwight Eisenhower surprised a family when he was on vacation in Denver.
A reporter from a newspaper wrote an article that was the shape of a letter addressed to the President telling him about a young boy, named Paul Henry Haley, who was suffering from cancer. In The Rocky Mountain News was a photo of young Paul Haley dressed in a cowboy outfit , with his arm wrapped around his mother.
The story began with “I’m writing this letter to you Monsieur. President, to the sake of a child who’s yet to learn how to write. He’s hoping to meet your face, Ike, and although the man doesn’t even know it, it’s his final desire.” According to Paul Ike, President Eisenhower was an “bigger and more powerful man” than even Hopalong Cassody, a well-known cowboy hero.
President Eisenhower read the newspaper and then said to one of his aides “Let’s visit Paul Haley.” The presidential limousine, which had American flags on its fenders, rolled up that Sunday in August in the front of Paul Haley’s house.
The car’s doors opened and the President drove up to the house and knocked at the door to enter. The stepfather of Paul, Donald Haley, answered the door in a pair of blue jeansand a stained shirt, and a day’s worth of beard. He inquired, “Can I help you?” To which President Eisenhower responded, “Is Paul here? Tell him that the president would like to meet him.”
Little Paul was seen walking around his father’s legs and gazed into the President’s eyes who kneeled down and shaken his hand. The President was described as “wide-eyed and stunned,” Paul walked into the living room along with the President. Eisenhower reported that he smiled and told, “Paul, I understand you wanted to meet me.”
They stayed for about five minutes. After that, Paul walked outside and took a look at the presidential limousine. The President informed him that he was the grandfather of a grandson around Paul’s age – Dwight David Eisenhower, II. He embraced the boy and they kissed and said goodbye. Then the President drove off.
What a wonderful surprise What a surprise the Haley family received on Sunday morning! Following their visit Donald Haley remarked, “How do I forget that I was there in the same outfit as I was wearing those jeans and a dirty, old shirt with a unwashed face, to meet President Obama of the United States?”
The spiritual lesson we learn from this tale comes from the experience of Donald Haley. On the day we all will be before the supreme authority over the entire universe, our creator God. We don’t know what date or when it will occur, but the Bible says that we and you will appear before God to be evaluated. Check out Hebrews 9:27.
We are all filthy but “all we are filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). How can sinful people like us be able to stand before God’s holy God? God has demonstrated His love for us even when our sins were unresolved at the time that Christ sacrificed His life for us. “If We confess that we have sinned, He will be trustworthy and just to forgive us of our mistakes and purify us from any wrongdoing” (1 John 1:9).
Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson once said, “Jesus Christ is God’s all to meet the needs of man’s entire being.”
Jan White has compiled a collection of her columns in her book “Everyday The Faithful Daily Life.”
The article Family shocked by president’s visit was first published in The Andalusia Star-News.
